linger longer
by sakuraxkisu
Summary: I refuse to say goodbye and let you remain forgotten with the old photograph albums and lost memories in the back of the mind.


**linger longer.

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She doesn't understand Sakura anymore.

She doesn't know how it happened, when it happened or why she had acknowledged this fact so late.

It was easy to understand Sakura's track of thoughts or her feelings when they were young. When Ino was the older sister, and Sakura was the naïve younger sister. When it was Sakura who ran to Ino crying about a grazed knee, the girls who teased her at school, not being able to buy the bracelet she wanted….

When she grew older, however, it was always her tears being shed on behalf of Sasuke or Naruto. It was never about the petty things she cried about when she was younger.

Ino did think it strange at the time, but then she would think that it'd be better if Sakura stopped worrying over petty, insignificant details of life.

But it grew worse.

In an adult's eyes, it would've been seen a good thing for Sakura to grow so mature and serious. But, though it may have seemed childish to others for worrying about Sakura's sudden change in personality, Ino could tell it wasn't a good thing.

Sakura had always been the younger sister, the naïve, innocent, light-hearted seven year old in Ino's eyes.

But the fifteen year old pink-haired girl staring back at Ino with distant, tired eyes couldn't have been Sakura. She rarely smiled, or laughed—and when she did laugh, it always sounded forced, reminding Ino of an old record player, playing the same worn-out, scratched record over and over again.

She rarely shouted, rarely showed _any_ signs of true happiness, _rarely showed any signs of emotions_. The only sign of emotion she ever showed were shown by accident. Like the near-invisible signs of dried tears across her cheeks, her bloodshot eyes, her paper-dry voice while explaining why her eyes were so red.

"I stayed up too late last night reading," She said once, her lips immediately stretched into a false-sheepish smile, feigning meekness.

"_Reading?_" Ino replied, unconvinced by the excuse. Unconvinced by the whole façade.

And then Sakura laughed—except this time, it wasn't like a record player playing the same record, it wasn't fake, or forced—it was sincere, truthful. To this, Ino laughed back, and for a single, split-second, Ino wasn't there, next to this new, alien Sakura.

She was in great, bright-green fields of grass and flowers of all colours, where the sun glowed like heated gold and vivacious rays of light would pour over your arms and legs, where lone petals would drift about in the mild spring wind, where the only noise you could hear was the loud, carefree laughter of small children playing in the fields.

And then, only a second later, she was plunged back into the bleak, seemingly-hopeless reality when Sakura's laughter came to a stop, and her mask of fake smiles and overused excuses once again came back.

That was the last time Ino heard her laugh.

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_Where did it go so wrong_, Ino wondered, as she watched this worn out, aged soul within the body of her twenty year old "friend". _Where did that naïve, innocent seven year old girl go?_

(_she died_, along with that fifteen year old girl full of fake laughs akin to record players playing an old song over and over—every last remnant of that vivacious girl was burnt, embers turned to ashes and dust, when _they died_)

All that is left of that seven year old girl is nothing but grey, faded photographs of vibrant smiles and glowing eyes with crinkled corners; the once vivid, bright-eyed girl with a smile permanently pasted to her face is nothing but a dull, black and white memory. The sound of her bell-like laughter is gone—even the glimpses of her smiling are gone.

(that seven year old girl, _her soul_, was taken away along with those two—_three souls and two bodies were taken—so why does one body still remain?_)

When Ino looks at this new Sakura, all she sees is a soulless corpse. An apparition of that vibrant, pink-haired, green-eyed girl in the past.

But Ino never dares to touch this new Sakura—for if she does, her hand would certainly go through this apparition of her best friend, and then she truly would disappear, to her rightful place in that coffin in by that third gravestone next to theirs.

Because though Ino may not understand this new Sakura, she refuses to let her go, and clings desperately to this apparition of her, as though she would fall into oblivion if she let go.

Because if she does let her go, the biggest thing she has feared will happen—

(all that is left of that seven year old is a soulless body, permanently wandering, wandering, in search of a place to rest, a place where it can belong)

—_she would forget that seven year old Sakura_)

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**A/N: Is this finally the end of my writers block? Somehow, I don't think it is XDDDD**

**Anyway, this is very different from my description-filled sasusaku angst oneshots, but I guess I needed a change. And it was more interesting, I think, writing about Ino and Sakura's "decaying friendship".**

**And sorry if it doesn't make sense.**

**(and the title is sortofkindof weird and strange, but I love it, lol XD) **


End file.
